[Bookreader] Text to Speech readers for XO

[Sayamindu Dasgupta]

Hi Gregor,
Thanks a lot for jumping in :-)

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 2:38 AM, Gregor Kervina
<gregor.kervina at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Sayamindu Dasgupta, SJ Klein and other members of this list,
>
> I'm a student of electrical engineering from Europe and would like to share
> with you my very positive experience with text to speech technology that can
> in my opinion significantly increase the educational potential of XO if used
> in the right way.
>
> For the past 12 years (since I was 15 years old) I'm daily learning from
> e-books and internet using text to speech software. I know this software is
> unpopular in developed world, many people don't even know that it exists. On
> the other hand many people (including me) don't like reading long texts on
> the LCD screens - that's why e-books are also not very popular.
>
> But unlike my friends I read 50+ e-books every ear and also daily news on
> the internet - I just select the text, copy it, and CoolSpeech software
> (using Mary voice) reads me all the text with speeds 300 to 500 words per
> minute. In this way I can browse other sites or look at photos or just lay
> down and listen while my laptop is reading to me.
> Other people don't understand what I'm reading because it is too fast for
> them but it can be learned quickly with slower speeds at beginning.
>
> I think XO laptops should definitely have such software pre-installed and a
> video introduction how to use it and what reading speeds can they expect
> after some time of practicing.
> It is also ideal for children with poor eye sight.
>

This sounds awesome. Could you let us know if the text to speech
software you have in mind is free/opensource and if it works on Linux
?
I am also looking at DTBooks specifications for digital talking books
- do you know how useful/widespread this technology is ?

Thanks,
Sayamindu


-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]